A
Louisiana woman who founded a
Native American–inspired “empire” with elements of both 1960s-style Black nationalism and the modern “sovereign citizens” movement
died on April 26th at her home in California at the age of 87.
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| Flag of the Washitaw Nation |
Verdiacee Hampton-Goston, as she was legally known, was an
African-American from Louisiana who also claimed ancestry in the local
Ouachita tribal group and preferred to be known as
Verdiacee Washington-Turner Goston El-Bey, Empress of the
Washitaw Nation—though the federally recognized
Caddo Nation of Louisiana and
Oklahoma, which represents most Ouachitas, had no formal connection with her.
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| “Moorish Science” religions date to the 1920s. |
The Washitaw Nation (in full, it is called the
Official Empire Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah) is in many ways an offshoot of the “
Moorish Science” movement, a precursor to modern Black nationalism which emerged in the ferment of religious and political ideas in 1920s and ’30s Detroit,
Michigan, where Islam, Freemasonry, offbeat anthropological theorizing, and an infatuation with all things
Egyptian and occultic gave rise to
Marcus Garvey and the
Nation of Islam’s founder,
Elijah Muhammad, among others. Hampton-Goston believed that her Washitaw ancestors were actually African-featured “
Israelites” (this is known as the “
Paleo-Negroid” hypothesis) and that she was their rightful empress and thus sovereign of traditional territories that she felt were illegitimately transferred from
Napoleon Bonaparte to
Thomas Jefferson in 1803 in the Louisiana Purchase. She spent most of her imperial career living in Oklahoma and was even for a while mayor of Richwood, Oklahoma.
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The Empress’s territorial claims were not particularly modest,
but she didn’t press them. |
Hampton-Goston claimed to be rightful empress of the entire territory of the Louisiana Purchase, which includes four
U.S. states, parts of nine others, and even a decent slice of
Canada. She claimed this right through “matriarchal descent.” (Most of the indigenous nations in the Louisiana Purchase territory have always, unlike the Ouachita and Caddo, practiced patrilineal, not matrilineal, descent, but, listen, this was hardly the most serious vulnerability in her arguments.)
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| Looks official—but don’t try using it as I.D. |
The number of those who counted themselves Hampton-Goston’s imperial subjects is unknown, but they certainly included a large extended family. In later years, the Washitaws adopted legal strategies that borrowed heavily from the “sovereign citizens” movement, a vaguely anarcho-libertarian tax-protest phenomenon which otherwise mainly attracts disaffected conservative rural whites. But—unlike a more high-profile Moorish Science splinter group, the
Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, which was shut down by authorities in
Georgia in 2005—Hampton-Goston stayed clear of troubles with the authorities. She was once investigated for tax evasion, but the charges were dropped. (She claimed identity theft caused the misunderstanding.) She was also once arrested for shooting two pigs in Monroe, Oklahoma. But charges were brought instead against the animals’ owner, for keeping them within city limits.
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| How to get pulled over in rural Oklahoma |
The Empress was also the author of a book called
Return of the Ancient Ones, which encapsulated many of her ideas.
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The idea of “indigenous” “Black Israelites” appeals to many politically disaffected
African-Americans in places like Atlanta. |
A long-time friend,
Vicki Williams,
said of Hampton-Goston, “She had her strong beliefs that everybody was supposed to be treated equal no matter what their color, what their race was or what they believed in or what kind of valuable they had.” Another friend,
Umar Bey, of Los Angeles, was quoted as saying, “She was a very spiritual woman. She had a direct connection to
God. She could think about something and go to sleep and wake up with the information she needed.” Hampton-Goston niece,
Zelia Logan-Smith, age 66, said her aunt’s ashes
would be returned to Monroe and scattered in a private ceremony. Logan-Smith added, “She was one step from a genius. She would say, ‘When you walk through the jungle, you have to be as harmless as a dove, but as wise as a serpent.’”
[You can read more about the Washitaw Nation, the Nuwaubians, and many other separatist and new-nation movements, both famous and obscure, in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar. The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon. Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this interview for more information on the book.]
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Her anthropological theories were a tad wonky,
but the woman knew how to accessorize. |
